David Gough in Nairobi
Sweeping a stray dreadlock under his cap, Nyaga wa Muhika sprinkled the herbs on the red-hot metal plate and placed a funnel over it to catch the smoke. The patient pressed his mouth against the nozzle and inhaled as many deep breaths of the acrid smoke as he could bear. When he lifted his head his eyes were streaming, and saliva poured from the corners of his mouth.
Nyaga sifted through the debris, picked six short black strands from the ashes, and held them towards the patient. “This is the bacteria that was hurting your teeth,” he said. “You will have no more problems now.”
Nyaga is 10 years old and has never been to school. He is from Kenya’s biggest tribe, the Kikuyu, and lives in a village commune – the flagship of a growing “Back to Africa” movement designed to find traditional solutions to Africa’s problems.
Members of the sect, known as Kenda Muiyuru (Nine Clans), wear tribal clothes and practise female circumcision, animal sacrifice and a heady mix of traditional witchcraft.
The sect’s spiritual leader, Maina Karanja, has a simple message. “Look at the problems that we face: poverty, disease, corruption and unemployment. These problems all began when the mzungu [white man] came to Kenya and forced us to leave our culture. If we want to solve our problems, we must go back to our roots.”
Visitors to the village, built in 1992 in the heart of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, must approach carefully through the detritus and stench of the Eastleigh slum to reach a tidy wooden fence and the scent of a wood fire.
The village is known as Thaai – meaning peace in Kikuyu – and is the centre of a movement whose roots lie in the legacy of the Kikuyu-led Mau Mau movement that fought British colonial rule in the 1950s.
“When the mzungu came to Kenya he stole our land and stripped us of our freedom,” said Dr Karanja (77), a former Mau Mau fighter. “But the worst thing that the mzungu did was to bring Christianity. He promised us that we would be saved if we gave up our culture, but all Christianity has done is take the whole country backwards.
“There is no salvation without culture. If we truly want to be saved we must forget about Christianity and go back to our traditional ways.”
According to the Kikuyu creation theory, the first humans on Earth were Gikuyu and Mombi, whose nine daughters are the source of the nine Kikuyu clans. One gave birth to a white baby called Kabachia.
“That mzungu was your ancestor,” says Maina Maingi (27), a former mechanic, “and that is why you and so many other mzungus came to Africa – to discover your roots.”
The commune earns a simple living selling food grown on its farm and by administering traditional treatments to patients, some of whom travel a long way.
One of its most revered medical practitioners is the young Nyaga, who has lived in the village since he was three, when his father gave up hawking on the city’s streets and devoted himself to rediscovering his culture.
With a confidence belying his age, Nyaga said he was proud of never having gone to school. “Why should I go to a mzungu school when I can get my education here?” he said.
The movement claims a growing membership of about 700, but it is ridiculed, mistrusted or ignored by most in Nairobi. “These guys must be a bit crazy if they think that growing dreadlocks and wearing beads will solve any of Kenya’s problems,” said a young man who lives near Thaai.
The authorities are also wary of the sect, fearing it has political ambitions – a claim Njaramba Muiruri (31) denies. “We are not interested in politics. In fact we don’t even vote. We believe that leaders are chosen by God.”
Nevertheless, Thaai villagers were stopped by police while driving back to Nairobi one evening last week. The policemen accused the sect members of being criminals and drug addicts. And when 17 members went to preach in the town of Kiambu in April they were arrested and detained for three months without being told why.
A Kenyan academic said the authorities’ opposition to such groups was inevitable: “They don’t represent a direct political threat, but the government is very wary of organisations that unite people along tribal lines.”